SESTERCE, sestertius, a silver coin in use among the Romans.
Some authors make two kinds of sesterces; the less, called sestertius, in the masculine gender; and the great one, called sestertium, in the neuter; the latter containing a thousand of the other. Others will have any such distinction of great and little sesterces unknown to the Romans. Sestertius, say they, was an adjective, and signified as sestertius, or two asses and an half; and when used plurally, as in quinquaginta sestertium, or sestertia, it was only by way of abbreviation, and there was always understood millia or thousands.